Hall doesn't judge players' artifacts

Jack Curry, New York TimesCHICAGO TRIBUNE

If Barry Bonds climbs within a handful of homers of Hank Aaron's record of 755 this season, Jeff Idelson of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum will become Bonds' shadow. Once Bonds moves close to Aaron, Idelson will leave Cooperstown to be closer to Bonds in hopes of securing some worthwhile mementos.

Commissioner Bud Selig has not said if he will attend the games that could be record-tying or record-setting affairs for Bonds, but the Hall of Fame already knows it will have Idelson in the stands. Idelson, a vice president for communications and education at the Hall, said he would be thrilled to get a bat or a jersey from Bonds, anything that chronicles the memorable moments.

"Our job is to present the game's history," Idelson said. "Our fans expect us to do that."

Selig's ambivalence about Bonds is in clear contrast to the Hall's approach, but Major League Baseball has no intention of telling the Hall, and its president, Dale Petroskey, to curtail recognition of Bonds should he surpass Aaron.

"If Bonds is breaking home run records, we have the responsibility to record it," Petroskey said.

Petroskey and Idelson said it was the Hall's mandate to present the artifacts that have shaped history and allow fans to interpret them. So if that means presenting items from players who have been linked to steroid use, as Bonds has, or who have tested positive for steroids, as Rafael Palmeiro has, they will do just that.

A recent tour of the 68-year-old museum found items on display from Palmeiro, who tested positive for steroids with the Baltimore Orioles in 2005, and Jose Canseco, who wrote a book in which he admitted to using steroids and accused teammates of using them too. Bats belonging to Mark McGwire--whose evasive testimony about steroid use before Congress greatly damaged him in the public eye--are featured in the Hall too.

Selig has often said that his goal is "zero tolerance" when it comes to the use of performance-enhancing drugs.

So it may strike people as curious that Palmeiro, in particular, is honored by the Hall, with the bat he used for his 500th homer on display. Why, after all, should a player who adamantly told a congressional committee he had never used steroids only to later test positive for them be given space in the Hall? The answer, major-league officials say, is they have nothing to do with selecting what will be displayed in the Hall.

"We don't tell the Hall of Fame what to do," said Pat Courtney, a spokesman for Major League Baseball. "We think that's a good thing."

As Petroskey sees it, the Hall of Fame is two things in one. The Hall is where players are enshrined for what they have accomplished in their careers and where judgments about a player's behavior can come into play. The museum, on the other hand, is where achievements on the field are recognized.

The distinction explains why Pete Rose and Joe Jackson, two players who are on baseball's permanently ineligible list, are not in the Hall but are given recognition in the museum.

Rose, the career hits leader who was barred from baseball for gambling on the sport, has several items here, including the bat from his 4,000th hit. His gambling is also noted. Jackson, a .356 career hitter, was barred, along with seven other members of the White Sox, for conspiring to throw the 1919 World Series. Jackson's uniform is in the museum, but the Black Sox scandal is cited too.

"You can't tell the story of baseball without telling Pete Rose's story or Shoeless Joe Jackson's story," Petroskey said. "Just because they don't have plaques on the wall, that doesn't mean you're not a part of history."